


The Legend that was Lost

by Xyriath



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Biracial characters, Ed has Alchemy, Ed-level cursing, M/M, Military Ed, Post-Canon, Xerxes | Cselkcess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 13:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8754334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: As he grows older, Ed begins to wonder about Xerxes's people, his bloodline, his heritage.  How much has he missed, destroying his home?  Burning what was left?  Dismissing his father?  What knowledge has been lost, and can any of it be regained?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bmmboo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmmboo/gifts).



> Commission for Bmmboo, prompt "Heritage." Thank you so much!

Edward Elric would always consider waking up to be a cruel and unusual punishment concocted by some dead gods of old in some bizarre castigation for some sin of humanity, long forgotten.

Yes, even when accompanied by gentle hands twirling locks of his hair, nudging at his hips, lips brushing against his temple, a soft voice murmuring in his ear.

Ed merely grunted at the intrusion, doing his best to twist away with a displeased sigh, but the gentle hand on his hip firmed, holding him in place.

“It’s time to get up,” Roy said, forcefully, voice right next to Ed’s ear.  “Up, Little Briar Rose, your prince—or, well, Fuhrer—awaits.”

Lips pressed against Ed’s, and he told himself that it was his curiosity, not the excellent kiss, that finally coaxed him into cracking an eye open.

“The fuck?”

“Hmmm?”  Roy’s lips moved to his cheek, then pulled back as he took Ed in, smirking at his victory.

“The fuck are you calling me a flower for.”

Roy dug into the dresser, fishing out a pair of clean underwear and chucking it at Ed’s face.  “You know, Little Briar Rose, like the story.  With the fairies, and the spindle, and the prince’s kiss breaking a sleeping curse?”

Ed scoffed, yanking the underwear off of his face.  “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Roy chuckled.  “What, you never got fairy tales when you were younger?  I heard them even growing up in a brothel.”

“Nah.”  With a longsuffering sigh, Ed groaned and drug himself out of the bed, beginning the arduous task of dressing himself.  “Mom told us the cool shit, like Faridon, and the murder of one of his sons, and the battles after that.”  Trisha would have scolded him for describing it as ‘cool shit;’ besides the profanity, the message had been one of caution in the face of violence, and awareness of its consequences.

“Never heard of that one.”  Roy tilted his head.  “How about Snow White?  Aschenputtle?  Rumpelstiltskin?”

“You’re a rumpled foreskin.  I have no idea who these people are, or why fairies bothered them.”

Roy simply sighed, shaking his head.  “You must have lived a deprived childhood.  Hurry up and get dressed.  We have meetings with diplomats that you’ll have to show off for.”

“My favorite thing,” Ed muttered, digging for a waistcoat.  But as Roy left, Ed’s mind wandered of its own volition, tugging up ghosts of memories of ancient battles and gods and curses.

They had to have come from _somewhere._

—

Why the fuck Pinako had never mentioned the origins of his mother’s stories before this, Ed had no idea.

“ _Xerxes?_ ” he sputtered into the phone, mouth agape.  “She told us Xerxesian stories and never even—what the shit?  How did she even—!”

“She wanted you boys to have a connection with half of your background,” Pinako sighed.  “So she bullied your father for as much information as she could gather about its culture, especially stories for children.  Nothing too deep or depressing, but she didn’t think it was fair, for you to grow up completely ignorant.”

Ed pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, suddenly staving away mingled feelings of resentment, guilt, and burning curiosity.  The idea had crossed his mind, years later, that Hohenheim might have told their mother something of Xerxes, that she might have written it down.  Ed had caught some of it himself, in the books they had read, and only later realized that they had been Hohenheim’s own additions.  Those books had been a part of their lost history, and they had destroyed it before they had known, losing it forever.  How much else had there been?

They had been idiots, then, wanting to leave everything behind.  They had since learned better, that cutting ties could never sustain a human, but that couldn’t bring back what had been lost.

—

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

Though Roy was very good at keeping his tone neutral, Ed immediately picked up on the slight thread of doubt as Roy perused through the stack of paperwork.  He shot Roy an exasperated look, but Roy still didn’t look up, instead leaning back in the small café’s chair as he sipped at his coffee.

“Of fucking course I am.”  Ed crossed his arms, leaning back himself.  “Besides, I’ve got the money saved up, and can probably sweet talk myself some grants from the CHAASS if I need them.”  The Curtis-Hohenheim Alchemical Advancement and Study Society he had helped found would do shameful things to get their hands on Xerxesian alchemical secrets if Ed hadn’t been so stringent about the morality of those involved.  And hey, if he happened to track down information about the country’s culture as well, all the better for him.

“It’s got to be buried under mountains of sand,” he murmured, “with no way to know where it starts, beyond that one spot—”

“That’s what the expedition is for,” Ed interrupted, foot tapping impatiently.  “Fuck, Roy, you think I’m just gonna have them go sweeping around like idiots with their heads cut off?  There’s a reason I’m going to the Society with this.  We’ll need to shift huge amounts of sand around with alchemy, and that’s just for starters.”

Roy finally looked up.  “And are you going to go with them?”

Ed froze at that, foot mid-tap.  He had entertained the thought, of course: who better suited to do large alchemical workings than him?  And to be there, out in the desert, discovering what was left of his people that he never knew existed…

But there was so much to do here.

“No,” he finally said, reluctance clear in his voice.  “No, I’m not gonna do that.  I’ve got too much research I’ve already pledged to oversee.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t start another project.”

He sighed and turned his head, looking off to the side—and locked eyes with a stranger, staring blatantly at Ed with an intent expression on his face.

When he saw that Ed had turned to look at him, however, he snapped his eyes back and pretended to focus intently on his food.  Ed, of course, narrowed his own eyes.

“Can I fucking help you?”  He raised his voice loudly enough for it to carry across the room, turning heads.  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Roy sighing, covering his eyes with one hand.

The man glanced around, clearly anxious at the attention, then shook his head.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, you were the one fucking staring.  You got something to say?”

“No!”  He shook his head, but watching the way Ed straightened, looking as if he were about to stand and walk over, he lifted his hands.  “I’m sorry.  I was just—I thought you might be Ishvalan.  But…”

Ed scoffed and turned away.  He knew what the man was going to say, had had the question thrown at him before.  _So, what are you, anyway?_   Roy had clear markers of Xingese ancestry, but Ed was apparently a mystery no one could parse. Even the darker-skinned people of Ishval and Liore had given him curious looks as well; his hair left him standing out among them, golden instead of blond, and his skin tone carried with it undertones of the color as well.  Ed had yet to see anyone else besides himself, Al, and Hohenheim with anything like it.  Apparently most Amestrians hadn’t, either, if the subtle staring was any indication.  They usually tended to be more discreet than this.

“C’mon.”  Ed stood, tossing bills down onto the table, and walking over to Roy, trying to ignore the contrast of dark against pale as he grabbed Roy’s wrist.  Normally he caught himself admiring it, but not right now.  “Let’s get outta here.”

“I think,” Roy murmured, following, “I understand now.”

—

Ed had known it would be a long shot.  Had known that even if they did find anything, it would be months, maybe years, before anything substantial came to light.

But knowing and being all right with something were two very different things.

“Edward, if you wear a hole in my office’s floor with your pacing, I will bill you for it, not put it on my budget.”

“That’s just ‘cause you probably don’t have room in your budget anymore, with all the destruction you end up behind—”

“Which is largely due to the fact that you, instead of staying within your own department, come to bother me and insinuate yourself in my projects far more often than necessary.”  Roy lifted his eyes from his paperwork, frowning and pointing a pen threateningly at Ed.  “Do you really have so little work, as an organizer of the State Alchemist program, that needs your attention?”

“I have underlings to do the paperwork for me,” Ed shot back, waving his hand loftily and smirking slightly at the aggrieved expression on Roy’s face.  It was a lie, of course, but Roy’s expression made it worth it.  “Besides, I think that position gives me every right to poke my nose into anything you’re doing, whatever it is.”

“I still outrank you,” Roy muttered, shooting Ed a black look and returning to writing.

A snickering Havoc stepped up to Ed, pressing a mug of tea into Ed’s hands, and forcibly pushed him into a chair.  “Is this about the fairytale thing?”

Ed shot a look at Roy, mouth dropping in outrage, but Roy ignored it.

“Yeah, he asks for relationship advice more than you’d think.”  Jean smirked.  “Plus, one of my sisters—Grace, the alchemist—went along on the expedition.”

Ed relaxed a little at that.

“Yeah.  I just… y’know, it kinda sucks, realizing there’s a big _chunk_ of you, of who you are, that you can’t place.  That no one shares.”  He sighed, then took a sip of his tea.  “I thought it would help.”

Havoc pulled a chair around, its back facing Ed, and straddled it, crossing his arms on the top and then propping his chin on his arms.  “I’ve actually been meaning to talk t’you about that.  Roy mentioned something about… what was it, Faridon?”

“Yeah.”  Ed glanced up again, enjoying the way the mug of tea warmed up his automail arm.  “What about it?”

“Well, it just sounds like someone in local legends.  Not quite the same—we call him Fereydun—but he was some king, ages ago, before the East was part of Amestris.  Kave, the farmer, helped put him back in his throne after—“

Ed sat bolt upright at that, eyes widening slightly.  “Wait, Kaveh?  No, he was a blacksmith!  After his two sons died because of the invaders?”

“Hey, now, don’t hate on us farmers.”  Jean smirked a little.  “But yeah.  Sounds like some stuff might have gotten changed over the years, but I just wanted to let you know, stuff might not be as lost as you think it is.”

With a ruffle of Ed’s hair that Ed normally would have snarled at, but was too stunned at his words to do anything about, Jean stood, shooting a lazy salute in Roy’s direction and heading out.

Roy’s attention had wandered from his paperwork at the conversation, and he now watched Ed carefully, pen set aside.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, jerking Ed out of his daze.

“What?”  Ed glanced over, feeling a little off-balance.  “Yeah.  I’m fine.  Why?”

“Oh, you know.  Just making sure you’re not going to send a team of archaeologists to go dig up Havoc’s town.”

Ed shot Roy a glare at the teasing tone, but then softened, and he could _feel_ the longing rushing through him again, the promises of ancient kingdoms, just there out of reach at the very borders of his consciousness.

Of course.  He should have thought of it, should have realized that even though the majority of Xerxes’s population had been destroyed, not _all_ of it could have vanished.  There must have been survivors that had settled down in what was now Amestris, even what was now Xing, who had passed down their stories and history.  Even though some of it had undoubtedly been lost, what could he find with this living archaeology?

“No,” Ed murmured, tilting his head back, staring at the ceiling.  “But a visit someday wouldn’t do amiss, I think.”  He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, mind already beginning to work.

“How would you feel about a vacation?”


End file.
